


make the flame burn good

by philcdendron



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Catfish AU, Dark, F/F, Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:52:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19842109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philcdendron/pseuds/philcdendron
Summary: "Eve’s life was falling apart. It had started with an assassin she didn’t even know a lot of but somehow had tracked. The MI6 found out her name and eventually, they gave a face to that name. Eve was certain that woman’s mind was amazing, she had to have the most interest training, however, she would never get to know the details because they would never arrest her. No one would ever even get near Villanelle because she was always one step ahead of everyone. If they saw her face, it was because she had let them find her. She had let Eve find her and she had found Eve too."Villanelle kills Eve's hook up, steals her phone and catfishes Eve.





	make the flame burn good

Eve’s life was falling apart. It had started with an assassin she didn’t even know a lot of but somehow had tracked. The MI6 found out her name and eventually, they gave a face to that name. Eve was certain that woman’s mind was amazing, she had to have the most interest training, however, she would never get to know the details because they would never arrest her. No one would ever even get near Villanelle because she was always one step ahead of everyone. If they saw her face, it was because she had let them find her. She had let _Eve_ find her and she had found Eve too. 

Villanelle was hard to find, that was basically why Eve ended up losing her job. But there was also a part of Eve that didn’t want to find her at all, at least not for MI6. There was a part of her that wanted to see up close everything she did, understand they way she worked, look her in the eye once again and be compliant. However, she was afraid finding her meant losing the only interesting thing she has left in her life so she couldn’t let her team come close to her.

Eventually, Eve lost her job because instead of working for their best interests she was protecting an assassin she had met in person only twice. She was disappointed, of course. In fact, she had almost begged to get it back, but she just didn’t __represent the organisation anymore__. She didn’t understand how she had let a criminal get into her head the way she had, but Eve had always hoped she would meet her again and things would turn out differently. Perhaps, there would be no arrest, no consequences for her crimes and they would be able to just have a chat, no knives, no threats. She just wanted more of Villanelle before they took her from her forever.

Villanelle was a tease and Eve felt trapped between justice and her inability to understand the way she was feeling, so she had given up her life in order to give Villanelle a chance. Except now she wasn’t so sure she wanted Villanelle to show up and threaten her with a knife again if that was what she understood by ‘a chance’.

A therapist with the MI6 had told her she had an obsession but Eve thought that was an exaggeration. She could think of other things and work other cases, but she dedicated some of her free time to looking into Villanelle’s movements because she just had to keep an eye on her because it was fun. Perhaps it was just the most important case of her life, but then again she didn’t want to get her, she didn’t even feel like stopping her. For God’s sake she wanted to clap at every crime scene she left behind because she was such an expert. It was beyond professional curiosity and deeper than a simple case obsession. So basically, she was on paid leave for her own sake and once it was over it was certain that was getting sacked for everyone’s sake.

Yeah, her life was in shambles, really. She had a huge house to herself only. Her husband had left her for a colleague, except he couldn’t even recognise it. No, he had to hide behind the excuse that she was no longer herself, that she was different, that things felt weird, __dynamics, blah, blah, blah__. The only visits she ever got were from random kids in the neighbourhood who rang her doorbell and ran.

She wasn’t miserable by any means, but she was getting lonely. The house felt empty without Niko and her life felt emptier without Villanelle.

She wasn’t one for meeting strangers but she had had her days of sleeping around and she felt like it was time to let go of all the heaviness she was carrying around. People got killed under her watch, so what? Niko had left her and she had lost her job because of a woman who was basically making fun of her whole organisation and quite possibly wasn’t even that interested in her. For fuck’s sake she deserved some fun.

She remembered Niko’s words about how boring she was every single time she tried, though. Sure, sometimes her style was kind of boring because she couldn’t stand out in a crowd and she wasn’t really good at small talk without alcohol in her blood, but now she was free to be whoever the fuck she wanted and __she wanted to be fucked__. Luckily, there were dresses she had never worn in his presence because __he__ was too boring and she never got invited to __anything__ because she was too much, apparently, to be included in boring suburbia school meetings. Whatever, who the hell needed school meetings? She was more adventurous than that.

But she was not adventurous enough to get out of her house in her little black dress by herself on Friday nights. She went over the same routine most Friday nights, actually. She got worked up in her bathtub, jacked off, showered, felt ready to fight everyone, had a bottle of wine while getting ready, and then just sat in her bed thinking of how wobbly she would look trying to walk drunk out of her mind in black stilettos.

Three weeks later she finally left the house in a two piece outfit and a leather jacket that made her look hotter than she expected. She didn’t have high hopes for the night because she had never been very good at picking people up. She hated bars and her job had just made her weary of people. 

The wine was wearing off and there was a guy with a buzzcut staring intently at her cleavage and if she were him, she would’ve been doing the exact same thing, to be honest. He bought her a drink but she didn’t drink it all because a minute after he smiled at her a blonde woman sat next to her. 

— This place is __disgusting!__ — She said in a loud voice and the bartender smiled at her. — The bouncer wouldn’t let me in ‘cos he was too busy staring at my tits! And who the fuck do these men think they are trying to get me drunk?

— I’m pretty sure they’re trying to buy you into getting in bed with them. — Eve replied with a laugh. She aware of the stupid exchange men expected and she was not about to pay attention to any of the assholes indirectly praying on her. She was into more direct people and she was too angry with the world to take just anyone home.

— And do __you__ wanna get me drunk? — She asked and winked before downing her drink. Yeah, Eve was into more direct people.

Eve had no problem getting shot after shot of tequila for both of them and then calling a cab to take them to her place. The tequila was not wearing off at all and her urge to just reach for the girl’s neck to kiss her was getting stronger the more she looked like the thousand pictures of surveillance she had seen of Villanelle. She didn’t feel guilty at all at the moment, much less when she was pinned to the wall by a smiling blonde in a mini skirt that wasn’t even near her lower body anymore. She had missed feeling close to someone. 

When Eve had met Niko she just knew he was the one. Turned out she wasn’t the one for him.

The next morning, the blonde girl left and Eve tried to forget that even though she was drunk, the only thing she could think about was Villanelle.

It was an issue that she has been ignoring for quite a while because she just couldn’t find a solution to it. Things had been fine until she’d learnt more about her, and then she’d had the great idea of showing up in her house and her world completely changed. She felt almost humiliated thinking about how a knife to her throat had made her feel that day.

After an hour of doing some cleaning around the house she realised the girl, Christie, had left two things at her place: her bra and her number under a note that said ‘call me tonight :)’. She smiled to herself wondering if she would ever consider texting her about her bra or about anything at all, but considering how lonely she was lately it wasn’t entirely out of question. It was an easy way out of feeling miserable again.

The next Friday Eve drank a glass of red wine before double texting:

__Hey, you forgot something at my place._ _

__Sorry to bring it up, just thinking I may wanna see you again tonight if you’re up to that._ _

She got ready while waiting for a response. Truth was she wasn’t really interested in Christie at all. She was hot, blonde and looked a bit dangerous, which was apparently her type. Spending another night with her seemed like a plan, specially if they met at the club, danced a bit and then ended up in Eve’s bed. A solid plan to fix a broken heart for a night. She was ready to call for a ride at 1 am but her reply didn’t come until 2 am:

C: __shit, sorry. not in london tonight. not christie’s phone, told me about the bra thing, though. pricey bra.__

Then at 2:30 am:

C: _ _not in london again until maybe next year probably, sorry about that. i’m a friend.__

Eve replied almost automatically:

__shoot. I’m mostly sorry about the bra._ _

She went to sleep with a full face of makeup and her tight dress on. She wasn’t in the mood to cry in front of the mirror to get unready, honestly. She shouldn’t have waited, but she was hooked on the image of Christie’s ribs as her back curved the closer she was to coming and the way her blonde hair looked splayed on Eve’s lower belly. She remembered how it tickled, she remembered imagining Villanelle’s smile as she kissed her stomach and went lower and lower. It was just too easy.

She had to accept she had a new life now. She had a new home where Villanelle wouldn’t find her, no husband, no job, now friends. But that was okay because it wasn’t the first time she had had to build herself up from her very foundation, and her foundation was damn strong.

She quickly forgot about Christie as the days passed, but the conversation between her and the mysterious local friend kept going. It was slow paced and they barely knew anything about another, but it was something completely new for Eve and she didn’t really know how to react to it. Her name was Lucy and she was sort of funny in a weird way. She texted her when meetings got too boring or when she couldn’t make a decision by herself. It made Eve feel included and like she had a nice friend for once.

As time had passed in her life she had killed every friendship she had ever had out of work. It was hard to keep in contact with people when all you could talk about was how bad you were at cooking and murders, really. Lucy made it seem more fun, even when Eve had nothing to talk about, really. She made the effort to talk to Eve every day and tell her to have fun, share about her life, encourage to do things and so on. It was nice to have that.

Lucy: __my boss is such an ass__

Eve: __I miss my job and my old boss. She was kind of an ass sometimes too.__

Lucy: __must have been interesting to have a batch and a gun__

__detectEVE haha_ _

Eve: __Oh, kind of? I’m more interested in something mundane now.__

Lucy: __i must tell u eve, you’re gonna wanna kill every man you come across in the industry of mundane jobs__

__but when u wanna start looking for a job just let me know. i have a few people who can help._ _

Eve: __Thanks :)__

Lucy: __you’re welcome xx__

Lucy was kind and always seemed to pay attention to every little detail to everything Eve said. Eve, nonetheless, couldn’t help but feel like their friendship was a bit childish. She always took a long time to reply and wasn’t really sure what to say. Lucy came off as more confident and despite knowing it wasn’t a common occurrence to meet someone through friend’s hook up’s texts, Eve was sure she had more experience chatting up strangers, so she wanted to seem as confident and relaxed as Lucy did.

Lucy, nonetheless, wasn’t relaxed at all.

The story went like this:

Villanelle killed a man in an elevator. Villanelle killed a man in an elevator in London. Villanelle killed a man in an elevator in London, found Eve’s new address and patiently waited for something to happen. She waited for MI6 to arrest her because she was being too obvious, but it never happened because they didn’t care for Eve now she had a new home no one would ever find.

What ended up happening was: Eve lost her job because she couldn’t find Villanelle after she killed a man right in front of their noses (or maybe she hadn’t wanted to find her), got lonely, hooked up with a girl that looked like her from the back, kissed her good-bye and that made Villanelle jealous.

Jealousy is a dangerous thing when you’re an assassin, and so Villanelle and her charming smile approached the beautiful girl (oh, she was just travelling for fun), got her number, met her in a club, got her in a hotel room, poisoned her and stole her phone. Not that clever, really, but she was desperate.

And Lucy? Lucy was just a girl from the south, working her way into the advertisement industry. Young, beautiful, relatable and lesbian. But most importantly, not an assassin that had cost Eve her career and marriage. The latter, of course, Villanelle was pretty proud of.

Eve: __Hey, wanna meet next Saturday?__

Lucy: __sorry, out of london till may__

Eve: __Busy?__

Lucy: __yeah. but i’ll always have time to text u don’t worry__

Villanelle had no work to do for the first two weeks, actually. But she really was not in London and had no idea when she’d be back. She hoped one day she’d be able to face Eve and it’d be something more significant than just a superficial friendship and some vague flirting through text. After all, until then, Lucy didn’t even have a face. She recalled perfectly the way her heart had pounded the moment she had seen Eve. Getting to talk to her just once had been the most exciting thing that had happened to her in a while and that meant a lot because she was rich and her job consisted of killing disgusting powerful men and women. Most importantly, Eve seldom wore her hair up anymore.

For a while, she knew she’d be happy looking from afar, but then she’d had the chance to be close to Eve. She’d touched her, she’d talked to her, she’d helped her change and it had just absolutely changed her life. She wanted every day of her life to be like that, minus the knives. Or perhaps, including the knives but in another setting if Eve consented to that. However, things were hard when people were looking for you and very tricky when you weren’t sure if the love of your life would turn you in or wanted to kill you. So Villanelle had taken the chance that girl had given her: the opportunity to get in contact with Eve, to build a solid relationship and maybe work their way up to something serious and be happy together like she wanted and maybe some day tell her the truth.

Villanelle would send texts like: “ _ _having your favourite meal without you xx__ ” and “ _ _wishing u were here there people suck xx”__ and steal pictures from influencers’ instagram profiles and stories because she was sure Eve wasn’t into influencers. She would show her anything to keep her entertained and never shut up as long as she stayed in a hotel room thinking about her. It was hard to think about all they could have together if things were easier.

Assignments became boring when she had them, though, because she couldn’t allow herself to have her phone with her. She had to keep it somewhere safe and it always had to stay hidden from Konstantin. Her handler was kind but he wasn’t so fond of the idea of his best product running away to start a life with the woman of her dreams. She had to ignore Eve sometimes and it made her feel terrible but she had no choice. If she did a good job then maybe she could go back to London for a minute and spend more time focusing on Eve.

Eve: __Laughing at stupid ads. Thinking about your people xx__

__How are your meetings going? How’s Amsterdam?_ _

__Hey, hope you’re having fun :)_ _

__Hey, any news on that project you were talking about a few weeks ago?_ _

Lucy: __yeah, completely dead. boring__

Eve: __Oh, sorry about that.__

Lucy: __no, it’s fine__

Conversations would quickly die down after that. Villanelle thought they were making Eve feel like maybe she wasn’t important to her anymore but Villanelle was paying attention to really urgent matters in order to really be able to focus on Eve at some point in the future. Maybe if she killed enough people she would get permission to settle down with Eve if she took her in.

She was in Berlin the day she made the first stupid decision. She had a wavy long auburn wig on that day and thought about how funny it would be to just snap a picture of her face and send it to Eve. Instead, she posed in front of the mirror and covered her face perfectly with the phone. The angle wasn’t the best but at least she looked good.

Lucy: __198273.jpeg ootd ;)__

Eve: __You look amazing ;)__

It was getting harder and harder for both of them to keep it casual when they texted all day if they had time. Eve usually sent her pictures of little things she ran into like cute dogs or dumb ads Villanelle was supposed to know about because it was Lucy’s job. Sometimes she sent pictures of herself and they often complimented each other but the flirting never went beyond that. Villanelle was sure Eve didn’t know where the limit was and Villanelle knew there was no limit for her. Except maybe she needed to rethink what she would do if things got more intense because she hated the idea of Eve thinking about another woman.

Her stomach dropped when Eve didn’t text her good morning or when she didn’t have time to reply. It had been months and they hadn’t the time to meet even when she said she was in London but their friendship was so casual Eve didn’t seem to mind. She was busy with a new job and other things.

Villanelle was the problem because she always wanted more and more. She wanted to see her, touch her, talk to her.

Lucy: __u busy right now???__

Eve: __Not really, why?__

It was funny how Villanelle had the courage to be mean and threatening to everyone else, but when it came to Eve she just didn’t have the same energy. Physically, she felt like all that anger became love and passion and obsession and so much more. She pressed ‘call’.

— Hey, just realised we’d never really talked before? — She said in her kindest voice, using her best accent as always. She had been trained to be the best and she’d be the best at it even if it meant lying to Eve.

— How’s everything? I’m just a bit surprised you chose to call. Kinda weird. — Eve replied. She sounded a bit anxious, if anything. But she was so sure of herself all the time Villanelle cut her some slack. She was new at this whole thing. The poor thing didn’t even know Lucy wasn’t real.

— Just busy, I guess. I’m working on a new project with this start-up. They’re just a lot of young people so they’re completely lost. — She started having no idea what she was on about, but she was such a good liar and she’d always been. She was absolutely sure she could keep it up forever. — How’s the new job?

— Uh… getting used to it.

— So… I reckon next Monday we should have coffee, on me. I know it’s nothing, but it’s something. — Villanelle suggested. It was probably her worst idea, but having the chance to be close to her made her feel better alive. 

— Sure. Just text me the details, I’m sure I’ll find the time.

— Okay. It was nice to finally hear your voice, Eve. See you around.

— Sure. — Eve replied and hung up. It left a bitter taste in Villanelle's mouth after all she had done for Eve. 

**Author's Note:**

> my writing is RUSTY so this isn't good but i just had the urge to write this?? Also dont judge me i dont know how old gays text and i apologise for mistakes i didn't proofread this it's 2 am 
> 
> find me at @ofvillanelle on twitter and as villanelle said xx ;)


End file.
